OUCH! Free Content gets hurt by enabled Ad Blockers

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has filed criminal charges against the former policy director of recalled California Governor Gray Davis in connection with a 2001 database contract scandal.

The twelve-count criminal complaint against Kari Dohn, filed in Sacramento County Superior Court on Tuesday, alleges that Dohn modified her computerized schedule and internal progress reports after the state’s Joint Legislative Audit Committee launched an investigation into a software license agreement between Oracle Corp. and the state.

The audit eventually determined that Davis administration officials had not applied due diligence in awarding the US$95 million contract to buy Oracle’s Enterprise Edition 8i database software, and that the deal was actually more expensive than Oracle’s standard licenses.

The audit also determined that an Oracle lobbyist hand-delivered a US$25,000 campaign contribution to Davis’ campaign committee six days after the Oracle deal was signed, Lockyer said in a statement.

The director of California’s Department of Information Technology, Elias Cortez, resigned in the wake of the controversy, and his department, which approved the deal, eventually was disbanded.